Concepts for Comping: Lesson 31
- Jay EuDaly
- 6 hours ago
- 4 min read
August 2026 Newsletter
Concepts for Comping: Lesson 31
Alterations: Minor (4-Voice)
Here are the unaltered minor chord types (4-voice) from Lesson 20:
As with the Majors, so with the Dominants, and now so with the Minors: we will alter the 5ths and 9ths to create altered minor chords. We do this to accommodate the melody (whatever it may be), or to create smooth voice-leading, or to take advantage of a chord shape that's easier to grab.
This lesson includes explanatory text, fretboard diagrams and a video:
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Video Lesson: Major 7 Chords, 1st Inversion
How about something that's difficult?
I remember when taking lessons from Danny Embrey, he showed me these chords. I struggled to play them and said,
"How can this possibly be useful?
“Oh I use them all the time” he said, and proceeded to casually play them all over the neck.
“Well” I thought to myself, “If he can do it I can do it!"
I went home and worked and worked on them and guess what? I use them all the time now!
This is Lesson 6 from Unit 5 of Vertical Truth: Chordal Mechanisms for the Guitar. There are 51 videos in this lesson series!
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The 5-Lesson Foundational Series teaches the Circle of Keys as an organizational mechanism by which you ensure that whatever you learn is drilled in every key in all possible positions. It also gives you a method to find any note, anywhere, without memorizing note names on every string. That is a beautiful thing!
Almost every lesson I teach presupposes these 5 lessons.
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Blogs Published Since Last Newsletter
Is the Guitar Playing You? I’ve often characterized the guitar as a “deceptive instrument.” It makes you think you know something…don’t let the guitar play you…
Concepts for Comping: Lesson 30: July Newsletter: Concepts for Comping, Triads, Playlist of 7 Videos, “Modal Distinctives,” Blog Links & MORE…
Tune of the Month
Funk is its Own Reward
In 1983-4 I was playing in a 5-piece dance band that worked 4-6 nights a week. I used “Love is in Control” in an earlier Tune of the Month slot, which was that band live in a club.
Myself, the drummer (John Hobbes), and the bass player (Gary Helm) were interested in upping our jazz chops so every Friday afternoon for a while we would get together and work up standards. After several months we started getting jazz gigs on our off nights. We did both originals and standards. It was the perfect setup because we all played in the same working dance band so our schedules were the same. Many weeks the 3 of us would play Tuesday thru Saturday with the dance band and then play jazz gigs on Sunday &/or Monday.
In May/June of 1983 the three of us went into the studio and recorded 4 original tunes, two of mine and two of Gary's. In an earlier Tune of the Month I posted Thirty Seven Thirty, which was one of my tunes.
This month I'm posting one of Gary's tunes, Funk is its Own Reward.
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